


Too Cool

by alissabobissa



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Helo knows all, Kara wins at Triad, the Karl & Kara Show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-11-02 01:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alissabobissa/pseuds/alissabobissa
Summary: “You’re playing it too cool.”Helo knows things while he and Kara play cards.





	Too Cool

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally written in 2008, and it is set sometime in season two after everyone gets back from the field trip to Kobol but before the Pegasus shows up. 
> 
> I own nothing.

Helo was looking at her. Really looking. Like staring. The watching didn’t bother her so much as the big idiot’s alternating expressions of amusement and the look a nugget gets when he’s just been assigned latrine duty. Something in that second one – ooh, dread! – worried the living frak out of her. Dread and amusement. Maybe Helo was dreading his amusement in her. Nah, probably not.  
  
“I know what you’re doing,” he said smiling, the lollipop practically flying back to his mouth.  
  
“Okay, I’ll bite. Only if it’ll keep that grin on your pretty face,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the cards in her hands. She loved it when Helo decided to be mischievous. “Besides taking your last cubit, what the hell am I doing?”  
  
“You’re playing it too cool.” He crunched down on his lolly and laid his cards on the table. The frakker was still staring at her, but now he had this maddening smug grin plastered all over his chiseled face as well.  
  
“There’s such a thing as too cool?” She laid her cards down and unceremoniously raked the pot of cubits and sundry other items towards her.  
  
“Yeah, there is, and I’m looking at it,” Helo said, raising his eyebrows at the last words. “Don’t worry. No one can tell. I just know how you operate. Been watching it for years.”  
  
“How I operate?” She laughed. It was a genuine, you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me laugh that almost made her snort.  
  
“Yeah. We’ve all seen it before.” He gestured to the rec room at large. “I just know the signs.” He smiled again showing all his white, smug-ass teeth. “It’s in the way you haven’t looked up all night, and how you haven’t even once cracked a joke about Kat’s flying, and in the way you’ve been quietly nursing that glass of ambrosia and not standing up to take a bow every time you finish a drink.”  
  
He paused to lean back in his chair and clasp his hands behind his head, no doubt to add to the dramatic effect. When she raised her eyebrows at him he let the smile fall from his face and spoke softly but slowly. “You’re waiting.”  
  
Apparently this was meant to be some sort of deep insight into her personality or psyche or some frakking thing because he just sat there expecting her to ask him to explain it, no explain her own actions to her. He had to know that wasn’t going to happen. He had been watching her for years after all.  
  
“Sure. I’m waiting. Just deal the cards, ass face.” He didn’t skip a beat; he just dealt the cards and popped another lolly into his mouth. Helo got eight cards in when whoever had just walked through the door distracted him enough to stop his hand in mid deal. Kara’s back was to the door and Helo, across the table from her, gawked openly at what Kara hoped was the only female pilot with a rack better than hers. He watched the person walk across the room, and he looked at Kara and grinned as she heard footsteps behind her.  
  
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and she turned as Lee said, “Hey guys. Prepare to lose that pile, Lieutenant.” He patted her shoulder and smiled at her before turning around to find a spare chair to pull up to their table.  
  
Helo leaned in and whispered to a smiling Kara, “Like I said, waiting.”


End file.
